RIT Print Alumnus Gives $100,000 to RIT’s Cary Graphic Arts Press

Contribution will help support RIT’s scholarly publishing enterprises

David Pankow, curator of RIT’s Cary Graphic Arts Collection, recently procured philanthropic support from RIT alumnus Brooks Bower, who pledged $100,000 to establish “The Bower Family Publications Fund.” The endowment will help support RIT’s scholarly publishing enterprises—Cary Graphic Arts Press and its new imprint, RIT Press.

Bower (School of Print Media ’74) is chairman and chief executive officer of Papercone Corp., an envelope-manufacturing firm in Louisville, Ky. He and his wife previously contributed approximately $200,000 in support of the “Brooks H. and Marilyn Bower Gallery,” within the new Alexander S. Lawson Publishing Center, which opened in May 2007.

The Press is associated with the Melbert B. Cary Jr. Graphic Arts Collection, one of the country’s premier libraries on the history and practice of printing.

According to Pankow, the current endowment will exist in a dual capacity: The fund will provide $50,000 over two years that may be used by RIT Press for its immediate publication needs, and the remaining $50,000 will establish a corpus—creating a permanent trust to ensure “The Bower Family Endowed Publications Fund” will exist at RIT in perpetuity.

“We are very grateful to Brooks Bower for his generosity and ongoing support,” Pankow says. “This will help establish a publications support fund so that RIT Press can advance its commitment to publishing books related to faculty scholarship, graphic arts and select regional history of Western New York State.”

RIT Cary Graphic Arts Press is a new academic press at RIT that publishes peer-reviewed scholarly content. Together with its companion imprint—RIT Press—the Cary Graphic Arts Press is working to craft a university press model that is progressive, innovative and nimble.

RIT Press is committed to publishing high quality titles and occasionally books of interest to the wider reading community.

The press maintains a close relationship with the Melbert B. Cary, Jr. Graphic Arts Collection at RIT, a renowned resource for those studying printing and graphic communications history, bookbinding, typography, papermaking, calligraphy and graphic design.